Because Australia

[DougRichards]

The love of field and coppice
Of green and shaded lanes,
Of ordered woods and gardens
Is running in your veins.
Strong love of grey-blue distance,
Brown streams and soft, dim skies
I know, but cannot share it,
My love is otherwise.

I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror
The wide brown land for me!

The stark white ring-barked forests,
All tragic to the moon,
The sapphire-misted mountains,
The hot gold hush of noon,
Green tangle of the brushes
Where lithe lianas coil,
And orchids deck the tree-tops,
And ferns the warm dark soil.

Core of my heart, my country!
Her pitiless blue sky,
When, sick at heart, around us
We see the cattle die
But then the grey clouds gather,
And we can bless again
The drumming of an army,
The steady soaking rain.

Core of my heart, my country!
Land of the rainbow gold,
For flood and fire and famine
She pays us back threefold.
Over the thirsty paddocks,
Watch, after many days,
The filmy veil of greenness
That thickens as we gaze ...

An opal-hearted country,
A wilful, lavish land
All you who have not loved her,
You will not understand
though Earth holds many splendours,
Wherever I may die,
I know to what brown country
My homing thoughts will fly.

**

Dorothea Mackeller

[JWB]

Her voice does not sound very Oz.

[Ssnake]

Accents are subject to change. Few Briton these days sounds like the recordings of the 1920s...1940s either, or Americans for that matter.

[Mikel2]

Accents are subject to change. Few Briton these days sounds like the recordings of the 1920s...1940s either, or Americans for that matter.

Mid-Atlantic accent has thankfully gone extinct. People now have to find other ways to sound snotty.

[DougRichards]

Her voice does not sound very Oz.

You can listen to a speech by the Australian Prime Minister in 1939 here. You don't have to listen to all of it but it gives an impression of the accent in th 1930s.

 

 

Also different parts of Australia, like the USA and Britain etc, have always had different regional accents.

[JWB]

I am used to this:

[DougRichards]

I am used to this:

 

You mean you fell for it, but I am not gobsmacked that you were. When it comes to understanding Australians most people not of oz have kangaroos loose in their top paddock. This video is having a lend of you.

 

Its London to a brick that you would have thought that this was the real Australia.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Incidentally, if anyone hasnt watched it, watch Aussie Golddiggers on I think quest at the moment. Very good, ordinary Australian's, going into the outback with a metal detector, and getting rich. Whats not to like?

[Coldsteel]

Incidentally, if anyone hasnt watched it, watch Aussie Golddiggers on I think quest at the moment. Very good, ordinary Australian's, going into the outback with a metal detector, and getting rich. Whats not to like?

 

Are you sure it wasn't one of them, like, "The Bachelor" shows, you know: "... watch Aussie Golddiggers on Quest. Ordinary Australians, going into the outback and getting rich!"

[Stuart Galbraith]

Where there was one last night (she is actually a model in her spare time, which is why she looked good in ripped jeans I guess) got a gold ring. Though as it turned out, it was one lost in the 1890s with a claim number on it. So they looked the claim number up online, found the claim, and turned out it was choker with gold. Kinda like fate, or maybe it was some long departed digger that liked the sheilahs.

 

Ive a feeling an Aussie dating show would look something like Bear Grills in the outback. IE, you can date this rich young woman, but first you have to wrestle a crocodile.

[DougRichards]

Where there was one last night (she is actually a model in her spare time, which is why she looked good in ripped jeans I guess) got a gold ring. Though as it turned out, it was one lost in the 1890s with a claim number on it. So they looked the claim number up online, found the claim, and turned out it was choker with gold. Kinda like fate, or maybe it was some long departed digger that liked the sheilahs.

 

Ive a feeling an Aussie dating show would look something like Bear Grills in the outback. IE, you can date this rich young woman, but first you have to wrestle a crocodile.

 

Our latest 'Bachelor'

 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Cummins

 

 

Edited October 9, 2018 by DougRichards

[DougRichards]

Ozstraylia,,,, where even the wildlife get pissed...............

 

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-10-12/cockatoo-gets-stuck-in-grille-of-car-and-survives/10370850

 

 

 

"Sometimes cockatoos and galahs will eat fermenting wheat and grapes on the side of the road and get a little bit drunk so it's possible that he was under the influence and that's why he decided to loop back around towards this giant chunk of metal," she said.

[BansheeOne]

Don't feed the kangaroos.

 

Kangaroo attack leaves Queensland wildlife carer with collapsed lung

 

Linda Smith also suffered broken ribs and cuts after she stepped in to stop a 183cm kangaroo hurting her husband

 

Australian Associated Press

Sun 14 Oct 2018 07.58 BST

 

A Queensland wildlife carer has severe injuries including a collapsed lung after she was attacked by a kangaroo.

 

Experienced wildlife carer Linda Smith, 64, had a collapsed lung, broken ribs, cuts and other injuries after a 183cm kangaroo attacked after she stepped in to stop it hurting her husband near Millmerran on Saturday night.

 

“I went outside to try and help him and took a broom and a piece of bread but he knocked the broom out of my hand then attacked me,” Smith said.

 

The woman’s husband, Jim was feeding kangaroos and wallabies when the animal started to attack him.

 

“I got him off Jim and Jim got up and I managed to grab a piece of wood to defend myself with that,” she said.

 

“Then my son came out to try and help me and hit him over the head with a shovel.”

 

The woman, who has cared for wildlife more the past 15 years, was due to undergo surgery on Sunday afternoon.

 

Despite the severity of the injuries Smith said she understood what happened was an “act of nature” and didn’t want to see the animal hurt.

 

“I am always careful, especially of the males. It’s breeding time so they can be more aggressive. I don’t want this kangaroo to be hunted down and killed; I love animals,” she said.

 

Smith remains in a stable condition at Toowoomba hospital.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/14/kangaroo-attack-leaves-queensland-wildlife-carer-with-collapsed-lung

[DougRichards]

What would you expect from the Terminataroo??

 

Edited October 14, 2018 by DougRichards

[FlyingCanOpener]

I was at Lone Pine in Brisbane when a male Red stood up and looked down on me just like that. He then stretched, got back down, and ate the feed out of my hand.

[Coldsteel]

What would you expect from the Terminataroo??

 

 

Your Clothes. Give Dem To Me. Now.

[Adam_S]

Man fights kangaroo, manages to not spill his beer.

 

https://www.9news.com.au/2018/12/07/13/21/victorian-man-attacked-by-roo-manages-to-save-his-stubby

[Ssnake]

Priorities, M8!

[BansheeOne]

Finally, an embeddable version of this great Axe kangaroo advert!

 

 

Though I understand it's actually a myth that kangaroos can't walk backward.

[DougRichards]

What would you expect from the Terminataroo??

 

 

This Roo died this last week. Evidently he was a gentle pet.

[DougRichards]

Don't expect Australia to be in the top eight at next years Rugby World Cup. Australia will be lucky to get out of the pool.

 

https://www.smh.com.au/sport/rugby-union/patchwork-wallabies-can-cheika-stitch-together-a-world-cup-campaign-20181214-p50mfz.html

 

We're starting to get a feel for what the 2019 Wallabies coaching team will look like, but the big question is how will it function in a high-stakes World Cup year?

Michael Cheika survives at the helm, Scott Johnson installed over the top as director of rugby, with Mick Byrne (skills) and Nathan Grey (defence) likely, but not certain, to survive a cull of the assistants.

Something had to give, but there are plenty of people bemused that it was attack coach Stephen Larkham – the man once anointed by Cheika as his successor – who was offered up as the fall guy.

 

An objective look at the Wallabies' season – 13 Tests, nine losses, half the tries scored this year compared to last – will tell you they were all fair game. The attack was poor, yes. But the defence ran hot and ice cold, the skills were not evident and the set pieces – the lineout in particular – a mess.

 

But depending on what side of the fence you sat, internally, it was someone else's fault. The defensive system exhausted players, leaving little in the tank on attack. The attack was too structured. There was too much kicking for a team short on strong tactical kickers. And so on. One source told The Sun-Herald that Larkham had barely touched the attack this season.

Which cuts to the heart of the matter. The Wallabies coaching set-up, which had its genesis as a meeting of minds of Australia's top Super Rugby coaches and was the blueprint for Cheika's campaign to build trust between the states, had degenerated into dysfunction. That's no great revelation, in a sense. The team's performances in the Rugby Championship this year told us as much.

 

What is interesting is how Rugby Australia and Cheika will move forward from here. It was surely a pre-emptive move from Johnson to get the message out early that he was not coveting Cheika's role. But while the 56-year-old has worked with interesting characters and is by all accounts an interesting character himself, a constrained Cheika is not a familiar proposition.

Will he accept Johnson's arrival and embrace his potential contribution? Certainly, Cheika has built his career on doing things instinctively and in his own way, rooted in a distrust of the rugby establishment.

Then, there's the assistants. If Larkham does go, who will replace him? Johnson could fill in the gaps, or Cheika. Who will fix the lineout? Surely that's relevant to the team's poor attacking record this year. What's Nathan Sharpe doing?

The changes won't stop there. The RA board's review threw up a number of areas of concern, and Cheika himself nominated some players he felt had not lived up to the team's high behavioural standards, The Sun-Herald has been told. Fitness and conditioning came up for discussion as well, among other areas.

 

The fallout will extend into the boardroom. Chairman Cameron Clyne is under pressure and may not survive next April's annual general meeting. John O'Neill is the name on everyone's lips in Sydney. Clyne has never been interested in longevity, however, and he will not be perturbed by such speculation. If he can leave the organisation in a financially stable position, with a formalised collaborative arrangement between the Super Rugby teams and national set-up and some meat on the bones of the organisation's high-performance structure, he may well declare it job done, no matter the damage to his legacy wrought by the Western Force debacle.

But those are big ifs. The Wallabies coaching dramas have masked the pressing issue of Super Rugby's future, a question that will have a singular bearing on the game going forward in Australia.

 

And there's the small matter of a World Cup in nine months' time. Castle, denied her wish to focus on a world-class succession plan for the post-Cheika era, has put together a patchwork plan B.

But how does Cheika recover from the damaging speculation the team's results precipitated in the back half of this season? How does the playing group? Many of them are overseas on holiday now, including the coach, but they will have to pitch up for Wallabies duty again in just a few weeks, called into a pre-World Cup camp that will be the first of its kind. Ironically, this was a Cheika proposal. Its staging is a credit to the goodwill he and high-performance boss Ben Whitaker have generated among the Super Rugby teams.

It will take an unheralded display of maturity and selflessness from players and coaches alike to make this sow's ear into a silk purse. Michael Hooper will need to draw on every ounce of his credibility as Test captain to marshal the group behind the new order.

But the Johnson-Cheika arrangement as one big, happy, blended family? That's what they'll take to fans early next week. I'm not buying it just yet.

[Adam_S]

Union has been dying on its arse over here for a long time. League has the money and the best players and the grassroots for Union is almost non-existent outside of posh schools in Brisbane and Sydney.

[DougRichards]

Union has been dying on its arse over here for a long time. League has the money and the best players and the grassroots for Union is almost non-existent outside of posh schools in Brisbane and Sydney.

 

Particularly when the public selective schools that used to play Rugby at a high schoolboy level were forced into accepting over-academically-coached boys who would not consider sport at all. I went to a selective school that had a good Rugby record until about 1980. Then the selection criteria changed and public schools did not stand a chance.

 

Back in 2006 I took part in a school reunion sporting event. All the Sydney GPS schools competing against the guys that we had competed against 32 years before. Yes, that long. I was involved in rowing (First VIII and First XV back in 1974).

 

Well the cricket teams were in camp at the boatshed one morning when we were in training. The first and second XI 's coaches brought out the boys to meet 'old boys' from a third of a century before. The cricket teams were nearly completely from a heritage of the subcontinent. That is just as it was. (You would not see a decent rower or rugby player amongst them. Of course cricket and basketball are doing okay.)

 

The coach said to the young men: "Boys, boys, take a look at these men, they are what you will be in 30 years..."

 

I was not the only person on our side of the transaction who thought: "What, white!".

 

There was no intentional or unintentional racism. It just came down to the fact that us old boys could not relate to a group of young men from a different cultural background.

 

My old school no longer competes in the GPS Rugby competition. To do so would be to risk the health and welfare of the players in the face of boys from Pacific Islands (in many ways semi-pros) who, whilst not competing academically with my old school, were able to smash, injure and maim the students of my old school.

 

So the old nurseries of Rugby in Australia have been destroyed by the 'win at all costs' even at the school level.

 

A bit like why would any talented player seek to play Rugby and be smashed by a certain team, when they could play Rugby League and have a reasonable career.

 

The taller and faster ones, who could kick, will play Melbourne Rules.

[DB]

I gave up any interest in school rugby when first I was folded in half by a 15 stone "13 year old" ringer in a sevens tournament, confirmed a while later by one of my classmates needing a hip replacement due to the ball joint separating at the bottom of a ruck, or more accurately, a pile of idiot school kids.

 

At that point I realised I was never going to be a top one percenter physically, and wanted to e able to walk when I was 40.

[DougRichards]

Funnel-web spiders come out in record numbers triggering Christmas warning

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-12-24/funnel-web-spider-warning-as-numbers-increase/10666344

 

 

Sydney's Australian Reptile Park has put out a festive-period warning after reporting a record number of "massive" funnel-web spiders handed in to its keepers.

The park said the funnel-webs, the deadliest spiders in Australia, were mainly males and had leg spans of up to 10 centimetres, some of the biggest spiders the keepers have seen.

The venom of the male Sydney funnel-web is six-times more potent than that of the female.

Australian Reptile Park head of spiders, reptiles and venom Dan Rumsay described the creatures that were handed in as "massive".

"They're even scaring me and I have to work with them," he said.

Mr Rumsay said the park had been given 20 spiders over the past week.

 

Victoria Museum senior curator of entomology Ken Walker said the sizes recorded were impressive.

"That's very large for these spiders without a doubt," he said.

 

The recent wet weather in New South Wales was believed to be one of the reasons behind the influx of spiders, but it is also the height of the breeding season.

Dr Walker said that love, rather than the weather, was the key factor behind the sheer number of male spiders handed in.

"While there has been a lot of wild, wet weather in Sydney, the fact that mainly males have been handed in suggests to me that the weather really hasn't been a major factor," he said.

"This time of year is the typical time males mature, and once they mature they actually stop feeding and they just spend all of their time searching for females."

 

The last death from a funnel-web spider in Australia was recorded in 1981, but Mr Rumsay said people needed to remain vigilant this summer.

"Last year a boy was bitten and I got to meet him. [He] was putting on his Harry Potter costume to go to a dress-up party and a spider was actually hiding in the clothes basket, so when he put the costume on it bit him," he said.

"Make sure you're checking all those things."

All the spiders handed into the reptile park will be put to good use: It's the only place in the country where the funnel-web is milked to create antivenom.

 

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-12-24/spike-in-funnel-web-spiders-in-sydney-after-storms/10666714

Edited December 24, 2018 by DougRichards